When Caleb played, they were thin on numbers then. They forfeited the game against my kids team this year. When my oldest graduated in 19, they were playing everyone and anyone way back then.
High School Sports Thread
- Thread starter qwerty
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That's sad. That program has generated a lot of top ISU talent since the 70s.
Rural programs are hurting.
8 Man continues to expand, every time they reclassify. I would guess we see it expand significantly again. Looks like LM was about 10 over the line this year.
Also makes me wonder how long before more schools end up doing the same as Orient-Macksburg did. In much of the state schools that could realistically merge have done so already. Now because of the distances and size of many districts merging doesnt make much sense, so more will end up dissolving.
That being said in other areas of the state many are seeing significant growth too. Its just more and more move out of the very rural areas.
The other issue is less kids are participating in sports, and less are multi sport athletes, compared to years ago. Now days kids play the same sport year round, and many times at most only have time for maybe 2 sports. When I was in school it was pretty normal to play 3-4 sports.
The posters who think private school recruit and think public schools don’t. Nobody around DSM and close areas, recruit? It used to be if you changed schools, you couldn’t play right away, not any more, correct.
Lake mills graduating classes are around the same size as mine was way back in prehistoric days. Kids just aren’t going out anymore. Cross country has eaten into it some but more just kids not going out.
Unless they have changed it recently. Maybe at public's they don't have to wait. I know at the private school my kids attended anyone transferring in had to wait 90 days.
It is still that way, my cousin changed schools, and supposedly the old coaches agreed to let her play at the new school. Then she started playing and her old coaches made a fuss and said she didnt have it in writing or something, and not only did she have to sit out the season, her new team had to forfeit all the games she played in.
This was just a couple years ago, so unless it changed in the last year or so its still that way.
Football is dying. No other way to put it. It’s from a combination of factors. Kids don’t want to work that hard, the issues with injuries, kids from lesser programs don’t like getting destroyed every Friday, among others.
Yeah it takes more kids in a class to field a team now days because so many either dont go out for sports, or they specialize in only 1 sport, and play it all year through clubs etc. So that drastically reduces the number of kids available for each sport.
I believe there are 2 more classes than when I was in school too, I believe they added 8 man and 5A since I was in school. Not sure when they were actually added. And with less and less participation in even 1 sport let alone multiple sports I think there has been discussions on adding even another class of 6Man or changing the 8 man to 6 Man.
I definitely know that school sizes that easily fielded an 11 man team 25 years ago, now are having difficulty filling out an 8 Man team, with the same size class, there just are not enough kids participating in enough sports.
Girls BB at many schools is now also having issues too because adding another sport (girls wrestling) at the same time has split the pool of athletes between 2 sports. Yes I think cross country may have caused this when it was added many places, but probably not to the same extent.
My kids middle school does early and late season in the winter, so they play BB before Xmas and Wrestling after. It gives kids a chance to play both and decide what they want to do for High School. It may be something that they do the same for High School as well some day, if it can be figured out.
I think I said it in the HS football thread but it feels like teams are either elite, decent, or so bad that any decent team just needs to show up to win by 40. Not much in between.
I feel like back when I played (90s) even the bad teams that might be 3-6 would still have a couple of guys that could make things tough and even if you were decent you needed to at least play well to win convincingly.
Compared to the private schools, it a fraction of the number of kids. Private schools have way too much influence in winning championships, and it needs to be curbed. But don't worry private school supporters, the state will never step up and do what is needed to help the public schools, hell they are more likely to do the opposite.
My kids high school is 5A and they had 8 sophomores go out last year. Meanwhile I think they had 50+ kids go out for golf. The time commitment and physicality of football is a tough sell if a kids heart isn’t all the way in it
They added 5A around 5-6 years ago or so. 8man was several years before that. While lake mills has around the same amount of kids per class, they are now A whereas we were class 2A when I was there. Basically the class A schools have disappeared and the 1As are becoming 8 man.
I guess I’m just wired differently. To me there is just something different about football and the team aspect that can’t be replicated in any other sport. It was a group and not an individual thing.
I have no idea about what Johnston is doing but there are no articles on this. There is no link about Clarion recruiting wrestlers but have talked to several parents about what they got offered to go there, and these are the ones who said no.
I mean if there were starters or role players from other schools getting PT that came from other schools, it be pretty easier to prove.
Clarion gutted Webster City wrestling team. Bought the family a house. 3 brothers that are all possible state champions.
All you have to do is check out the state semifinal girls basketball and put on Cyclone Fanatic and say where does this girl live in the Des Moines Metro Area. You quickly find out that about a third or half of the girls are open enrolled.
